


Before The Years Flew By

by Mackem



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 03:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11774907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackem/pseuds/Mackem
Summary: She can’t move.It’s ridiculous. After the sheer scale of their journey so far, after a hundred worlds and a hundred years and even more dangers faced throughout both, Lucretia finds she cannot take a single step forward. She stands frozen at the end of the Starblaster’s gangway, unable to disembark.





	Before The Years Flew By

**Author's Note:**

> Two fics posted in two days... this won't be a streak that continues, I suspect!
> 
> The prompt that I wrote around for this was "journey". The title comes from Kate Bush's 'Babooshka'. I just... *clenches fist* I just have so many feelings about Lucretia, is all.

She can’t move.

 

It’s ridiculous. After the sheer scale of their journey so far, after a hundred worlds and a hundred years and even more dangers faced throughout both, Lucretia finds she cannot take a single step forward. She stands frozen at the end of the _Starblaster’s_ gangway, unable to disembark.

 

“I can do this,” she mutters to herself, part pep talk, part irritation. “I’ve done this a thousand times before.”

 

And she has. But practically every time she took this step, the first step in a new part of their journey, she was buoyed on either side by her crewmates. By her _friends_.

 

That even held true until yesterday evening, when she guided a still-dazed Taako down the same gangway and ushered him to an inn in New Elfington. She seated him at a table in the corner, assured him that this was the town he grew up in, and that he belonged here, and then left without letting herself look back.

 

Her next steps onto the gangway were unaccompanied.

 

He’ll be fine. They’ll all be fine. The seven – the six – no, the _five_ , and god, that number hurt, but the five of them that remain had come far enough on their journey that a brief bit of amnesia would barely register in the long-run. It will only be for a scant few weeks. What’s a few weeks over the course of a hundred years?

 

She’s doing this for the right reasons. She knows they’ll understand that, eventually.

 

And yet, with guilt clanging in her mind like the echoes of a single set of footsteps on a gangplank, Lucretia finds that she cannot move forward.

 

Until she feels a prod at the small of her back. She whirls around, startled out of her reverie, and finds a concerned face turned up towards her. “Davenport?”

 

“I’m fine,” she says instinctively, and then repeats it, trying the lie on for size. “I’m fine.”

 

He nods after a second, as though convinced, and moves beside her, squeezing in on the narrow gangplank. He holds his hand out to her and smiles widely, as though he does not have a care in the world. She’s almost certain that is in fact the case, even if it was never what she intended for him.

 

Lucretia stares down at him as he looks back up at her, guilt thrumming ceaselessly in her stomach while he beams and waves his hand encouragingly. “Davenport!” he insists cheerfully, and cocks his head towards the village in the distance as he steps off the gangplank as though it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done.

 

But then, it is. He has no memory of _any_ of the amazing things he’s done. She certainly made sure of that.

 

She swallows, and screws her eyes against the hot sting of tears. She can’t cry now; not around Davenport, who would no doubt want to comfort her when it’s the last thing she deserves. He has far more cause than her to shed tears, even if he has no understanding of that.

 

No. Better to get to work than to waste time weeping. There’ll be time for that after, when her friends are all restored.

 

Lucretia takes a shaky breath, and tamps down on the guilt in the pit of her belly. It doesn’t dissipate, precisely, but perhaps she can let it motivate her rather than paralyzing her. Her friends are counting on her, after all. She has to fix this. She cannot do that by dithering nervously in the _Starblaster_.

 

She’s doing this for them.

 

“All right. Let’s go,” she murmurs to Davenport, in lieu of a thousandth apology he won’t understand. Instead, Lucretia clasps his hand, squeezes it tightly, and takes her first steps in a new part of their journey.


End file.
